By Jim Parker

In 1863, with the founding of Michael Phelan's first "Billiard Congress," (no affiliation to today's BCA,) billiards, meaning all cue games, became an organized professional sport in America. American baseball saw its first professional team, the Cincinnati Red Stockings in 1869, and its first National League in 1876. The American League came into the majors in 1901. Since 1863, based on their popularity, both billiards and baseball were found on the front sports page of every major newspaper in the land. Some 60 years ago billiards lost its popularity rating. Ever since, as a professional sport to Americans, it's had the same interest as dog-sledding might have to cowboys in the Oklahoma panhandle. Seldom since its fatal heart attack, has pro billiards been given even a by-line in the obituaries unless Hollywood launches a movie using a pool table somewhere in their fable. Baseball, in complete contrast has spun its way through history far beyond William A. (Candy) Cummings first curve ball of 1867. Why such a complete contrast in popularity?

Over the past 50 years billiard organizations and historians blame the games loss of popularity on everything from television, shifting economy, to world wars. The same things that were in progress when baseballs popularity was souring as high as Babe Ruth's 60th home run …And scoring all time high popularity ratings as fast and hard as The Kid, Ted Williams, in 1941 could hit a baseball. The answer to billiards professional popularity problems, aside from its smoked filled pool halls, blatant gambling and back room card games, can be summed up in one word …people. People lacking concern and sensitivity towards professional sports. Both games, billiards and baseball, have a certain amount of interest and appeal to all levels of society. Yet judged by baseballs national popularity, it has been managed by people with well-serviced concerns for the best interest of both society and the sport itself. While at the same time, aside from a handful of dedicated enthusiasts, billiards was not.

The principle reason Phelan in 1863, founded his Billiard Congress in the first place, wasn't simply to create a sense of corporate order, but rather create spectacle with order. He believed that for any game to grow into prominence it needed professionalism. Professionalism brought about to a large extent by creating heroes through organized public competition. Baseball learned the same rule of conduct and to this day never forgot it. Billiards did.

We were all reminded of baseball hero's with the recent passing of the Boston Red Sox hitter, Ted Williams. Since baseballs 1869 Cincinnati Red Stockings some 133 years ago, up to and including the time it takes for the ink to dry on this report, there has yet been any man, ever, having walked into a batters box, hit over .400. …Any man of course, other than Teddy Ballgame himself, Ted Williams.

Theodore Samuel Williams began his illustrious baseball career in 1939 and ended it 21 years later in 1960 the same way it began, with the Boston Red Sox. If one single year were to become synonymous with Williams, it would be 1941. The year he hit .406 and was also crowned home run champion. He was called, "The Splendid Splinter," all 170 pounds. But if the real measure of the man himself were brought into focus, it spans far beyond 1941, hot dogs and American baseball.

Williams was an All American in every sense of the term. He was John Wayne in a Boston Red Sox uniform. While baseball was his passion, patriotism and defending our nation during wartime was his duty … and he worked equally hard at both. With his career in full swing at the same time as his hitting, he quietly stepped down from baseball to serve in the Navy for three years during World War II. In 1952, once again Williams left baseball, this time to serve as a Marine fighter pilot during the Korean conflict. A young kid by the name of John Glenn was his wingman.

The hitter loved fly-fishing and often slipped away to find some quiet fishing hole. It's been said that Ted Williams was the only person, ever, that was the world's absolute best at three totally different things; hitting a baseball, fly-casting

and piloting a jet fighter plane. Williams was magnanimous. Petty rivalry and jealousy were words that simply weren't part of his dialog. After his induction into baseballs Hall of Fame, he further promoted the importance of Afro-Americans and the old Negro Leagues to the future of both baseball and society itself. His energy and enthusiasm equally poured out when he pushed for Shoeless Joe Jackson to be admitted into Cooperstown, and later, the Japanese slugger, Sadaharu Oh, into his museum.

Ted Williams was and still is the undisputed best hitter of all time. He once said: "I've been a very lucky guy." In many respects he was right. When he began his career in the late 1930's, aside from sports like baseball, boxing and horse racing, nothing much else existed. Pro football then was just a sideshow and tennis only barnstorming. There were fewer Americans that knew the name of a basketball player, than the actual location of Pearl Harbor. You'd be hard pressed in finding another black athlete other than Joe Louis, and NASCAR didn't even exist. Professional billiards was only a few years away from its fatal heart attack. A national collapse of such longevity in fact, that today, some 60 years later, has yet to recover.

Williams career began and ended during a time when baseball players didn't have to lift weights and the only drugs were aspirin. It was a time professional athletes didn't sell their bodies to the devil. A time, that on the field, we could believe in what we saw, because what we did see was the real thing. Athletes, men and women alike, all trying to measure up and become the absolute best in their sport. Then, in American baseball, that meant becoming another Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig. Today, it means becoming another Splendid Splinter, Teddy Ballgame or whatever your choice of name, they all mean the same, Ted Williams, All American.

When you stop and think about it, there's a man that any kid in America could hope to become, and men, in the winter of their lives, might wish they had become. So I ask you, where today in American billiards, are men like Ted Williams? …And that question isn't the whole of this report, because baseball didn't start or stop with Williams. Throughout its entire history no matter how much baseball changed, it remained the same. Champions like Ty Cobb became Babe Ruth, Ruth became Joe Di Maggio and Ted Williams, they became Jackie Robinson and Roger Maris, and over the past century, they all became Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

A hundred years ago American billiards also had its heroes. Larger than life heroes. Even before and after radio and television, their pictures and stories appeared in all the major newspapers across the nation. Papers with circulations in the millions ... daily! Journalists wrote their stories and listed their tournament results with the same enthusiasm as today's baseball. Pocket billiards saw legends like Alfredo DeOro, Bennie Allen and Frank Taberski. In later years came Jimmie Caras, Irving Crane and Willie Mosconi. Three-cushion and various carom billiards featured men like Jake Schaefer Jr., whose father in the 19th century dazzled audiences of thousands with his balkline billiard performances. There were world class champions like Johnny Layton, Augie Kieckhefer, Welker Cochran and Willie Hoppe. These heroes put and maintained professional billiards on the top of sports charts for a span of some 50 years. They were professionals in every sense of the word. They lived out the meaning of words like dignity, honor, and showmanship. When they died, so did professional billiards in America die.

William (Willie) Frederick Hoppe, was our nations professional world title-holder of various billiard games for over a span of 46 years. He retired in 1952 the same way he began in 1906, at the billiard table, after winning his 52nd world title. The following two years the title changed hands twice. Both time's to Americans. Ray Kilgore won in 1953 and in 1954 Harold Worst captured the title. 1954 was the last year and final classic era professional world three-cushion championship held in America.

Ten years later in 1964, a new modern era of three-cushion billiards was born. Streamlined, state of the art billiard equipment was being designed and produced in other parts of the world by nations with sensitivity to the future of the game itself. France, Belgium and Sweden to name a few, began building the worlds finest billiard equipment. And why not? When our countries struggling billiard manufactures and pro players were squabbling over petty organizational prejudices, these were the nations that carried-on and fathered some of the finest carom players on the planet. Players like Belgium's, Raymond Ceulemans - Argentina's, Juan Navarra - Sweden's, Torbjorn Blomdahl - Japan's, Nabuaki Kobayashi and the Netherlands, Dick Jasper.

Even today, when the Illinois Billiard Club first launched its current billiard boosting campaign with family as its centerpiece, who was the first to send notice of concern and best wishes for the programs success? It was the French. Yes sir, the French. It was Mr. Christophe Chevillotte, Paris France. President and fourth generation of his family founded 142-year young, Chevillotte Billiard Table Co. The billiard tables used in prestigious world class events like the French World Billiard Cup. The second vote of confidence came from Sweden. Mr. Jorgen Sandman, managing director of the European Billiard Congress. Encouragement and best wishes also came from John Lewis, spokesman for the Billiard Congress of America. The club has yet to hear a single word from even one American billiard table manufacture. How very odd? The one's financially to gain the most, yet whose expressions of encouragement are the least.

In conclusion of billiards premier modern era 1964 tournament, an American by the name of Arthur Rubin had the distinction of winning the first world three-cushion title. Rubin inherited another distinction. He was also the last American to ever win the world title. Since Rubin, not one single American-born billiard player has yet to win the prestigious world three-cushion title. Had it not been for the good fortune of billiards in America that a young Korean immigrant, Sang Chun Lee, won the 1993 world title, the United States wouldn't have won a professional world three-cushion championship in the past 38 years!

How is it that a nation that fathered such an array of carom kings during the first half of the 20th century, has now seen its players fall so far from the world throne? Pettiness, prejudice and partisanship. The three terminal cancers of man's spirit of hope that's run ramped throughout this nations game of billiards (all cue games) for the past 50 years. Rival organizations and individual displays of self-indulgence, jealousy and organizational prejudice. …This is factually what's damaged the growth of both carom and pocket billiards in this country more than any other single action. Professional billiards in America became diseased with self-doubt and the lack of consistent and sound progressive leadership. …And to this day, has yet found a cure.

If this blighted attitude continues by those referring to themselves as American billiard patriots, this all too precious game will simply cease to exist. In America, three-cushion billiards would have long since disappeared into oblivion had it not been for our neighbors across the oceans. By their concern for improved billiard equipment and maintaining world class events, other countries have helped carom billiards in America buy-time to reorganize and hopefully rebuild itself.

Professional billiards is struggling to regain what it once had, its youth. With this all too precious word, comes enthusiasm and the physical and mental dexterity professional billiards lost so very long ago. It's long since been time to give the mass media, with its legions of sports writers, healthy and exciting good news about today's game of billiards. A game that more than ever needs heroes. Real hero's, like Ted Williams, Hank Aaron and Mark McGwire. Journalists need reasons. Reasons to put billiards back on the top of their assignment lists, rather than in the bottom of their trash-cans. After all, these are some of the things life is all about in the first place. What comes with man's basic existence is his responsibility to teach and pass-on the true meaning of words like patriotism, parenthood and sportsmanship. Not pettiness, prejudice and partisanship.

Both American baseball and billiards began as professional sports some 130 years ago. Over those years baseball has grown beyond one's imagination. Yet within those many years it hasn't changed its rules very much. It's still, 1-2-3 strikes and your out, at the old ballgame. Today, professional billiards in America is up-to-bat, and already on its 2nd strike. Let's hope it becomes professional enough to learn even a tenth of what baseballs already forgotten. …So it doesn't strike out again for another 50 years. And once again stagnate itself and all of its fans, along with the millions of others that could have been.

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In an effort to help rebuild and promote billiards and its wholesome values, the Illinois Billiard Club has stepped-up its youth program with the introduction of its Federation of Fathers and Sons of American Billiards. A new club concept directed at bringing together fathers and their sons to compete as family teams with other fathers and their sons. What could possibly be a more wholesome way for young people to learn any game than through the efforts of their father, a man that by evolution and love are most sensitive to their futures.

The program consists of a perennial series of five monthly eight ball tournaments hosted on the last Sunday of each month from June through October of 2002. On the same Sunday, the IBC is simultaneously hosting three-cushion billiard tournaments. Aside from boosting family unity through amateur competition, this arrangement offers an opportunity for family teams to be introduced to three-cushion billiards. This arrangement also offers three-cushion enthusiasts an opportunity to give something back to the game. That is of course, the one's with a genuine interest in boosting the popularity of the game itself, as opposed to simply boosting their own ego's. Based on their personal willingness to help others, the game boosters, as opposed to ego boosters, are above all the best choice of instructors. While they're often not the highest point scoring players, they're to a more important degree, typically the highest scoring in terms of their sensitivity to human values, not simply cash values.

Also included in this 5-month series of weekend events is a complimentary to all tournament participants, a 10 a.m. Sunday brunch served in Bonnie's Dining & Banquets adjoining 100-seat dining room. To participate as either players or spectators, membership to the IBC or any other organization is not required. Reservations are.

The club is inviting both players and spectators of either division to attend by reservation, any or all of the upcoming events. All tournament entry fees are $35 per team and / or individual carom players. Sunday brunch is included. Trophies, photo's and public recognition is awarded to the top 25% of both divisions. Cash prizes are not. The three-cushion tournament however does feature an optional to enter cash prize fund. Any three-cushion contestants interested in posting an additional $100 or $500 travel fund entrance fee may do so.

The optional travel fund has been established to defray transportation and lodging charges for contestants traveling from out-of-state or country. …Yet all contestants may enter. Only those entering the optional fund are eligible of winning any portion of the travel fund. Guest charges of $15 pp on Sunday apply to any and all guests, not contestants. Sunday brunch is also available to guests at regular rates. For further information please call the IBC at 708.839.1331. Or write to The Illinois Billiard Club / 8446 Archer Ave. / Willow Springs, IL 60480. Visit the IBC at www.IllinoisBilliardClub.com

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